Inside the Collection: Kim Samek dissects I Am the Ghost Here

Inside the Collection: Kim Samek dissects I Am the Ghost Here

What makes a great short story collection? In Debutiful’s latest Q&A series, Inside the Collection, short story writers will take readers through their writing, editing, and sequencing of their debut short story collection.

In I Am the Ghost Here, writer Kim Samek shows readers contemporary life with a twist. Each story strips down the rituals and technologies that structure modern existence and bends them into the surreal. Prior to realising this, her short fiction won a Pushcart Prize and has been featured in GuernicaEcotoneElectric LiteratureNorth American Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, swamp pink, Gulf Coast, Southern Humanities Review, The Threepenny Review, Story, and ZYZZYVA. She also was a writer and television producer whose credits include MTV’s Catfish and PBS’s WordGirl and earned her Emmy nominations.

In our latest “Inside the Collection” Q&A, Samek dissects her debut short story collection, I Am the Ghost Here.

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Meet David Barringer, Winner of the Black List’s Unpublished Novel Award

Meet David Barringer, Winner of the Black List’s Unpublished Novel Award

The Black List recently announced the seven winners of its inaugural Unpublished Novel Award, introducing the world to seven writers across various genres from children’s and young adult fiction to adult crime, horror, and literary fiction.

Debutiful recently chatted with all seven winners and is excited to introduce the world to each writer, discover why and how they write, and learn more about the book that won them the award.

Meet David Barringer, winner of the Horror award for his manuscript, A Box Came For You. Barringer has done it all. He’s worked as a freelance journalist, lawyer, design writer, novelist, graphic designer, editor, photographer, and teacher. His screenplay Summer Clubbing, adapted from his own novel, was an Official Semifinalist in the Los Angeles Crime & Horror Film Festival 2021, a Quarterfinalist in the Screencraft Horror Screenplay Competition 2020, and an Official Selection in the HorrorHaus Film Festival 2020.

We asked Barringer to give readers a brief insight into his writing life and his Unpublished Novel Award-winning manuscript, A Box Came For You.

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See the cover for Bodega Stories by Amaris Castillo

See the cover for Bodega Stories by Amaris Castillo

Amaris Castillo was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Dominican parents and credits the many tales she heard growing up to her love of storytelling. She became a journalist and created Bodega Stories, a multimedia series featuring real stories from the corner store.

She turned those stories into a non-fiction book also called Bodega Stories, which is a “window into a Dominican family’s bodega and the community at its heart.” The book, which will be published by the University of Florida Press on September 8, 2026, is now available for pre-order.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Bodega Stories, which was designed by Mindy Hill, along with a Q&A with Castillo about its creation.

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Maybe the Body Poet Asa Drake thinks a lot about time and place when writing

Maybe the Body Poet Asa Drake thinks a lot about time and place when writing

Asa Drake was a 2024 National Poetry Series finalist and has received fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, the Florida Book Awards, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House, and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems have been published with The Slowdown Podcast, The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review Daily, and The Georgia Review.

Her debut poetry collection, Maybe the Body, explores the conflicts between art and patriotism, labor and longing. It is now available from Tin House.

We asked Drake to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her debut book.

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Meet Roz Ray, Winner of the Black List’s Unpublished Novel Award

Meet Roz Ray, Winner of the Black List’s Unpublished Novel Award

The Black List recently announced the seven winners of its inaugural Unpublished Novel Award, introducing the world to seven writers across various genres from children’s and young adult fiction to adult crime, horror, and literary fiction.

Debutiful recently chatted with all seven winners and is excited to introduce the world to each writer, discover why and how they write, and learn more about the book that won them the award.

Meet Roz Ray, winner of the Crime & Mystery award for her manuscript, Us Honest Crooks. She was born and raised in Seattle and received an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. Ray has spent years teaching writing to K-12 students and at universities and is in the process of becoming a certified Wired for Reading specialist.

We asked Ray to give readers a brief insight into her writing life and her Unpublished Novel Award-winning manuscript, Us Honest Crooks.

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See the cover for Appetite by P. Paramita

See the cover for Appetite by P. Paramita

How far will you go to feed your ambitions?

That’s the central question in P. Paramita’s debut novel, Appetite. It follows Zarina, an underpaid prep cook in New Haven who dreams of opening a restaurant while finding solace in cooking Bangladeshi-inspired dishes. Zarina idolizes pro wrestler Sierra Myst, who unexpectedly befriends her. From there, her wildest dreams start to come within reach, but the relationship grows imbalanced, pulling her away from her own ambitions.

Paramita herself is a Bangladesh-born, New Haven-based writer, professor, and pop culture enthusiast. Her debut novel will be published on August 4, 2026, by The Dial Press. It is available for pre-order now.

Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Appetite, which was designed by Sophia Chunn, along with a Q&A with Paramita about its creation.

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See the cover for I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

See the cover for I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

J Brooke is the award-winning queer documentary Out Late. They are also Prose Reviews Editor at The Rumpus, and a previous Nonfiction Editor for Stonecoast Review. They received their MFA from the University of Southern Maine, and their work has been nominated for a 2025 Pushcart, a 2025 Best of The Net, and “HYBRID” (their autobiographical essay on gender) won Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Award.

In their debut poetry collection, I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side, Brooke takes readers on a journey from a tightly controlled, gendered childhood in elite New York spaces to a self-defined nonbinary adulthood that resists societal expectations and erasure. While exploring amily dynamics, body dysmorphia, class performance, and queer becoming, Brooke interrogates how identity is seen, misseen, and claimed.

The collection is available for pre-order through Driftwood Press now and will be released on June 2, 2026.

Debutiful is very excited to reveal the cover for the collection, which was designed by Sally Franckowiak, along with a Q&A with Brooke about its creation.

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Belgrave Road author Manish Chauhan believes every book he’s ever read shaped his debut novel

Belgrave Road author Manish Chauhan believes every book he’s ever read shaped his debut novel

Manish Chauhan, born in Leicester, is a writer who works as a finance lawyer in East London. His short story, “Pieces,” was shortlisted for the 2024 BBC National Short Story Award, and early excerpts of his debut novel, Belgrave Road, were longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Award and shortlisted for the Daniel Goldsmith First Novel Prize.

In Belgrave Road, Chauhan introduces readers to Mira, a young woman navigating life in a new country and a marriage that leaves little room for choice. When she forms a quiet bond with Tahliil, she must decide whether connection and selfhood are risks worth taking and what freedom might really mean.

We asked Chauhan to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped his life and influenced his debut novel.

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Murder Bimbo author Rebecca Novack is always looking for a perfect Michael Crichton smell-alike

Murder Bimbo author Rebecca Novack is always looking for a perfect Michael Crichton smell-alike

Rebecca Novack grew up in the Rocky Mountains and received a master’s in theological studies from Harvard Divinity school. Now, she’s releasing her debut novel, Murder Bimbo.

Murder Bimbo follows a sex worker recruited into a covert political assassination, who is left to fend for herself once the job is done. Hiding in the woods with only days to survive, she races to control her story through a feminist podcast and a series of increasingly unreliable emails, forcing readers to question truth, power, and who gets to be disposable.

We asked Novack to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could learn about the books that shaped her life and influenced her debut novel.

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